By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is falling on Thursday and heading toward a rare three-day losing streak.

The S&P 500 sank 0.7% in early trading. That was deeper than its dips from the prior two days, and the main measure of Wall Street’s health is on track for its longest losing streak in more than a month.

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 107 points, or 0.2%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1% lower. All three indexes are still near their records set at the start of the week.

Stocks felt pressure from several reports showing the U.S. economy may be stronger than economists thought. While that’s encouraging news for workers and for people looking for jobs, it could make the Federal Reserve less likely to cut interest rates several times in the coming months.

The Fed just delivered its first cut of the year last week, and officials had penciled in several more through the end of next year. That was critical for Wall Street, which has sent U.S. stocks to records on a blistering run since April in large part because of expectations for many cuts. Easier rates can boost the economy and make investors more willing to pay high prices for stocks, bonds and other investments.

But a stronger-than-expected economy could remove some of the Fed’s urgency, particularly when cuts to rates carry the risk of worsening inflation that’s already stubbornly high. If the Fed doesn’t cut rates as many times as investors expect, it would empower criticism that’s already built saying the U.S. stock market has become too expensive after prices rose so much, so quickly.

Treasury yields ticked higher in the bond market as traders pared bets for the number of upcoming cuts to rates by the Fed. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.17% from 4.16% late Wednesday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for the Fed, climbed more sharply.

One of Thursday’s better-than-expected economic reports said that fewer U.S. workers filed for unemployment benefits last week. That could be a signal that the pace of layoffs is slowing.

The second report said the U.S. economy grew at a stronger pace during the spring than earlier thought, while the third said orders blew past economists’ expectations last month for U.S. manufactured goods with a relatively long life span.

On Wall Street, CarMax tumbled 19.1% for the largest loss in the S&P 500 after the seller of used autos reported a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It sold fewer vehicles during the quarter than it had a year earlier. It also was hurt because it increased its expectations for losses from loans made in earlier years.

The heaviest weights on the market were Big Tech stocks. They’ve been the market’s biggest superstars in recent years and have carried Wall Street to record after record. But they’re also facing some of the harshest criticism that the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology has sent their prices too high.

Nvidia fell 1.8%, Broadcom lost 2.9% and Alphabet sank 2.2%.

Starbucks was swinging between modest gains and losses after the coffee chain announced a $1 billion plan to restructure, including the closure of stores and the cutting of 900 nonretail jobs. It was most recently down 0.7%.

In stock markets abroad, indexes fell in Europe following a more muted finish in Asia.

Germany’s DAX lost 1%, and France’s CAC 0 fell 0.7% for two of the bigger moves.

AP Writers Matt Ott and Teresa Cerojano contributed.

By Anna Claire Vollers, Stateline.org

Rural hospitals are less likely to offer obstetric services after they’ve been acquired by a larger health system, leading to mixed outcomes for mothers and babies, according to new research.

It’s part of an accelerating trend that’s reshaped how Americans get health care: Larger health systems gobble up smaller facilities in a bid for financial stability.

“The hospital industry has undergone tremendous transformation over the past few decades, with nearly 1,600 mergers between 1998 and 2021,” said Martin Gaynor, a coauthor of the study and emeritus professor of economics and public policy at Carnegie Mellon, in a statement.

Those large-scale changes to the health system can affect costs, quality and access to care, he said.

Over the past five years, more than 100 rural hospitals have stopped delivering babies or announced they’ll stop in 2025, according to the most recent data from the Center for Healthcare Quality & Payment Reform. Less than half of rural hospitals still offer labor and delivery services.

Gaynor and a team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern University and the University of Georgia examined how hospital mergers have affected access to obstetric care in rural areas, and the quality of that care. They found that rural hospitals were part of more than 450 mergers from 2006-2019.

Once those rural hospitals were acquired by larger systems, they were 30% less likely to still offer labor and delivery services five years later. Many of the shuttered obstetric departments were the sole local source of obstetric care.

That loss translated to fewer resources — such as practicing OB-GYNs — in the county where the acquired hospital was located, researchers found.

The number of births in those counties didn’t change; families just had to go elsewhere for care.

Less access to nearby care could explain those counties’ small increases in health problems among women during or after pregnancy and child birth, and higher rates of smoking among pregnant women, researchers said.

On the flip side, they found that some patients went to higher-quality facilities farther away. And in rural hospitals that didn’t close their obstetric departments following a merger, the quality of care tended to rise.

In recent years, officials in dozens of states have championed laws to increase oversight of mergers and other health care dealmaking.

In the wake of devastating hospital closures tied to corporate financial maneuvering, some states have strengthened their antitrust laws.

Last year alone, 22 states enacted at least 34 laws related to health system consolidation and competition, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, an advisory think tank for lawmakers. Other states, meanwhile, have paved the way for health mergers in a bid to save failing rural hospitals.

At least 35 states now require hospitals, health systems, providers and private equity firms to notify a state official of proposed mergers or other contracts.

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Earlier this month, California lawmakers passed a bill to expand the state’s authority in overseeing mergers and acquisitions in health care. It’s headed to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, though Newsom vetoed a similar measure last year.

At the federal level, President Donald Trump’s administration has not signaled an interest in increasing antitrust oversight. But Trump’s recent tax and spending law did include $50 billion in funding over the next decade aimed at helping states strengthen rural health care. Massive cuts to Medicaid also in the law could have devastating impacts on rural hospitals struggling to stay afloat, however.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that states have until Nov. 5 to apply for rural health funding. States must show that they’ll use the federal dollars in a way that aligns with certain CMS goals, including helping improve access to care and strengthening retention of health care workers.

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By FARNOUSH AMIRI and LEE KEATH, Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Palestinian president, speaking over video after the United States revoked his visa, told world leaders Thursday that his people “reject” the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and pledged that the militant group would have no role in governing Gaza after war ends and must hand over its weapons.

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Mahmoud Abbas told the U.N. General Assembly that Palestinians in Gaza “have been facing a war of genocide, destruction, starvation and displacement” by Israel. His speech came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to New York to give his own address in person on Friday.

Despite laying out in gruesome detail the death and destruction in Gaza, Abbas said Palestinian authorities “reject” the action Hamas carried out on Oct. 7 and that it does not represent their people. He also laid out his vision for what government would look like in territories once the war is over, saying that the Palestinian Authority is “ready to bear full responsibility for governance and security. He added that “Hamas will have no role to play in governance,” and will have to hand over their weapons to the Palestinian authorities.

“There can be no justice if Palestine is not freed,” Abbas said.

In a short but resolute speech, Abbas thanked the world leaders who have stood up for Palestinians throughout the Gaza war, saying that the recent recognition of Palestinian statehood has presented his people with hope for peace and an end to the conflict. He welcomed the recent announcements from France, the U.K. and Canada to recognize them as an independent state and called for the remains few dozen countries to do the same.

But, he added, that symbolic recognition is not enough to address the present moment.

“The time has come for the international community to do right by the Palestinian people, so that they may obtain their rights for their legitimate rights to be rid of the occupation and to not remain a hostage to the temperament of Israeli politics, which denies our rights and continue in their injustice, oppression and aggression,” Abbas said.

Before concluding, he sent a message of hope to the Palestinian people, saying that no matter how long the suffering continues, “its results will not break our will to live and survive.”

“The dawn of freedom will emerge, and the flag of Palestine will fly high in our skies as a symbol of dignity, steadfastness and being free from the occupation,” Abbas said. “We will not leave our homeland. We will not leave our lands.”

Keath reported from Cairo.

By James Royal, Ph.D., Bankrate.com

While Bitcoin spent the last decade soaring and making millionaires out of many people, other owners of the world’s largest cryptocurrency have missed out. Why? One major reason: They’ve lost access to their account. In fact, more than $400 billion in Bitcoin is estimated to be lost — but some is recoverable, says at least one firm.

A 2023 report from Unchained Capital, a Bitcoin financial services company, estimated that up to 3.8 million bitcoins have been lost. That’s out of a total of about 19.9 million in existence today, and a maximum supply of 21 million tokens when Bitcoin is fully mined. That could mean as much as 19% of today’s supply is gone forever. Or is it?

Traders who have lost access to their Bitcoin or other digital currencies and assets may have the ability to recover them, at least with the help of one high-tech firm.

Bitcoins may be recoverable

Bitcoin’s vaunted security cuts both ways, preventing the bad guys from getting your stash but also — and often — you, too!

One of the most highly touted aspects of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum or Dogecoin is their security. Not only are they nearly impossible to counterfeit, but transactions are almost irrevocable. Once someone has your bitcoins, they own them for keeps. It’s a similar situation if you forget your password, it gets tossed out as part of a move or you throw away a hard drive holding the coins.

But Chris and Charlie Brooks, father-and-son founders of CryptoAssetRecovery.com, have been recovering Bitcoin and other digital assets since 2017 for people who have lost their passwords, despite the high security.

“We estimate that about 2.5% of that approximately 20% of lost coins could still be recovered,” says Chris. The figure amounts to as much as $11 billion in recoverable assets with Bitcoin trading around $115,000.

Of course, not all digital assets are recoverable. Corrupted hard drives or those that were thrown away are likely gone for good. But Crypto Asset Recovery says it has a decent chance of getting your lost loot back if you had encrypted private keys but forgot your password or if you had a failed hard drive with private keys.

However, even if you have a wallet and they are able to pry it open, you may not have any coins in it at all. Former Bitcoin owners who dabbled in the cryptocurrency years ago may simply be hoping that they had long-lost treasure left on that old hard drive but weren’t certain and decided to have a look just in case.

“About half the wallets we crack are empty,” according to Chris and Charlie.

How your trapped crypto can be retrieved from a locked digital wallet

All kinds of digital assets could be trapped on a hard drive somewhere — Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin or any number of the most popular cryptocurrencies. But also increasingly trapped are NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, which might be digital art, a collectible, music or something else. These are all potentially recoverable.

The typical success story at Crypto Asset Recovery involves “an early Bitcoin adopter with a Blockchain crypto wallet,” says Charlie. These wallets are more than half of what they see. An early enthusiast may have purchased a few coins and then forgotten about them. But now with a single bitcoin trading for big money, even just a few coins could be a nice haul.

Once they’ve been contacted, Crypto Asset Recovery consults with customers, asks their best guesses for passwords and gets to work. Even if you only know part of your password or have a general idea of what it might be, the odds of accessing your lost crypto assets go up significantly.

From there the team tries to “brute force” your account, trying all kinds of potential passwords based on your suggestions.

“We might run tens of millions to hundreds of billions of password variations before we get it, or we decide that it’s not worth putting more computational resources into it,” says Chris Brooks.

Watch out for scammers advertising asset recovery services

Given the sensitive nature of the work, you may have to trust an asset recovery firm with potential passwords to your crypto account, which you may also be using elsewhere.

The promise of getting access to your lost bitcoins may entice even the most cynical owner to let down their guard around those who promise to help them retrieve their money. That’s easy to do if you may have hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars, locked in a digital wallet somewhere.

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But officials caution consumers to carefully verify any asset recovery firm they hire. Many supposed firms are simply scammers who access your account and then run off with the proceeds, if they can even access your account. They may ask for a fee upfront to do the work, with the promise that you’ll eventually get your cryptocurrency and then run off with that cash.

The scams are highly sophisticated, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Scammers may even issue press releases and fake testimonials that seem to vouch for their asset recovery services.

Officials point to several red flags that consumers should pay attention to:

—You’re charged a fee before any services are provided.

—The physical address for the firm is not provided or it’s located outside the U.S.

—The firm does not have a phone number and you’re asked to communicate through chat apps.

—The firm asks for your bank account details so that the recovered money can be deposited there.

Those are some of the most important signs, though the CFTC offers other warning signs and tips to stay safe.

3 common ways crypto traders lose access to their coins

Cryptocurrency has grown immensely popular over the last few years, and it’s a trendy trading vehicle for many young people who are new to investing. A 2025 Bankrate survey revealed that one-third of millennial Americans were at least somewhat comfortable with cryptocurrencies. But regardless of age, crypto traders may be unfamiliar with the different ways these digital assets can be held, meaning they could lock themselves out of their account.

Cryptocurrency owners can lose access to their assets in a variety of ways, and here are some of the biggest.

1. Not fully understanding how custody works

Unlike traditional assets such as stocks or bonds that are always held for you at a brokerage, cryptocurrency can be held directly by owners using a cryptocurrency wallet or a trading firm may hold them on your behalf. But this difference is crucial to recovering your assets.

If a firm has custody of digital assets for you, then you can work through its system to recover access to your assets. So it’s like a traditional investment firm in this way. You can verify your identity and the company will reset your password, and you’re ready to roll again.

But if you take custody of your digital assets, you won’t have that luxury. Unfortunately, many of those who are new to cryptocurrency don’t understand when they’ve taken custody of their assets and the responsibilities that entails. To access your self-custodied assets you’ll need your seed phrase, a collection of 12 to 24 words generated by your crypto wallet.

Because of the potential dangers of holding assets yourself, Chris and Charlie Brooks strongly recommend that those new to cryptocurrency sign up with a custodial wallet. With a custodial wallet, you could contact your trading firm and access your cryptocurrency relatively easily.

“Understand what is required to manage a Bitcoin wallet before diving in,” says Charlie.

2. Losing your seed phrase

People misunderstand the risks with crypto, says Charlie. “The much more likely risk for most people is that they lose their seed phrase — not that it’s stolen from a hacker, though that happens, of course.”

“The largest misconception that gets people into trouble is not understanding that the seed phrase is a representation of your private key,” says Chris Brooks. “If you lose that, you’re in trouble.” Many people don’t realize that the seed phrase is that important, he says.

The seed phrase unlocks your wallet as well as all your crypto in the wallet. So it’s vital that you maintain access to this seed phrase. “It’s not like a bank account with a password that they can just reset,” says Chris.

Moving is a really common time for someone to lose their seed phrases, they say, but there’s a simple solution.

“Buy a $30 safe from Amazon and store your seed phrases in there,” says Charlie. “You need a place to keep them so that no one will think ‘Hey, I need to throw this away.’”

3. Self-sabotage

“One of the biggest hurdles we face is that clients self-sabotage,” says Chris.

Self-sabotage occurs when people try to fix the issues themselves and only succeed in making things worse.

“About 30% to 40% of the folks that we can work with have hard drive issues from an old laptop,” says Chris. “They reformatted it or gave it away, for example.”

But the solution here is relatively simple: “Stop touching stuff — don’t reformat or reinstall a wallet,” says Chris. Resist the urge to try to fix something, because you will likely end up making it worse.

Bottom line

While it appears that a substantial portion of Bitcoin is lost to the sands of time, your crypto stash may not be a casualty. So it may be worth your time to see if you can recover your lost assets. And it’s certainly always worthwhile to understand what you need to do to correctly manage your account so that you don’t run into trouble in the future. Furthermore, as trendy and popular as cryptocurrencies are, they aren’t backed by any other asset, so their prices are volatile. Only invest what you’re willing to lose.

Bankrate’s Logan Jacoby contributed to an update of this story.

©2025 Bankrate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.